Electronics

The technology is a chemical method for preparing ultrathin oxide films on silicon with low leakage currents and high capacitance, optimizing the electrical properties of the dielectric barrier.

Details

An alternative gate dielectric material will be required for scaling of microelectronic devices to continue at its present rate. The decreasing dimensions of the transistor have required thinner and thinner gate oxide films to maintain capacitance. Unfortunately, leakage currents through silicon dioxide film become too high when using films thinner than 2 nm. Alternative gate oxide materials with a higher dielectric constant have been sought, but the problem has been finding a material which will not form an interfacial layer of silicon dioxide between the high-k dielectric and silicon substrate, and can be deposited using an economically viable process. Continuous dielectric films for silicon based electronics of thicknesses far less than is possible with SiO2have been demonstrated, with high chemical purity and exceedingly low leakage current. This is accomplished through repeated condensation-hydrolysis reactions using n-propyl orthozirconate. The resulting materials will permit the best FET gate material, and when combined with other innovations, the lowest power, highest speed transistors possible.

Applications

The primary application for this technology is for integrated circuits; processors and memory applications are the main applications for IC (integrated circuit) technology.

Examples of such applications include:

• Semiconductors
• Microelectronics fabrication
• Electronic chemical industries
• Tool manufacturing

Other applications would include sealing or passivation of silicon surfaces in electronics and capacitors on chips.

Benefits

• Smaller, Faster, & More Efficient: High dielectric constant material allows for continuation of size reduction and increased area density
• Increased purity: Key to this technology is the purity of the zirconium Industry potential: High dielectric constant material with low leakage currents

Developed by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, this suite of six technologies enhances multiple facets of nanolithography and scanning probe microscopy. The suite features multifunctional, active probe arrays that enable nanoscale and microscale printing with multiple fluids, nanotube micromachining techniques for high-resolution probe tips, fluid dispensing systems for multiple probes, and a simple electrostatic actuation method for independently lifting individual probes in a high-density probe array. Used singularly or combined, the technologies each offer unique qualities and benefits that simplify and enhance both nanolithography and scanning probe microscopy.

Applications

The methods and materials that these technologies utilize can be applied to all types of scanning probe nanolithography as well as scanning probe microscopy.

Applications include:

• Biotechnology: High-density microarrays or biochips for genomics, toxicology, proteomics, and biological and chemical sensing.
• Semiconductors: Microelectronic components, photomask repair, and direct-write nanolithography.
• Imaging: High throughout scanning probe microscopy, mapping surface characteristics, and detecting surface defects.

Benefits

Using essentially the same equipment but with varying probes and software, Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) with nanoscale probes offers great potential for both nanolithography and imaging. The Nanotip Engineering Suite enhances the functionality of SPM equipment, offering benefits in applications ranging from bioscience to semiconductors. Miniaturization of semiconductor chips could be greatly advanced with the use of scanning probe nanolithography. In genomics and proteomics, biochips containing arrays of dots such as DNA fragments allow researchers to study the vast number of interactions of various proteins on a single chip. Like semiconductor chips, the development of nanoscale scanning probes has great potential benefits for the creation and study of biochips. Current scanning probe nanolithography techniques for creating high-resolution patterning have limitations in both resolution and complexity, and they use inefficient processes.

The Nanotip Engineering Suite eliminates many of those limitations and improves the overall process for nanolithography as well as scanning probe microscopy. 

1. Multifunctional Probe Array (TF04157)

Most current scanning probe lithography methods use a single tip or tip array that must be changed if a second "ink" needs to be applied. This probe change also requires calibration in order to maintain alignment and accuracy. Ths step is both time-consuming and inefficient and also often introduces contamination. To address these issues, this technology provides a multifunctional probe array with active probes that can perform direct chemical patterningand imaging sequentially in a singlerun with accurate registration and no need for changing probes. The technology uses actuators to enable individual control of probes for up and down movement as needed. Patterns using different chemicals and ranging from nano- to microscale can be created and then imaged without risk of cross-contamination and while eliminating the inefficiencies of switching probe tips.

Benefits

• More versatile: An active multiprobe array enables the use of probe tips of differing sizes for generating patterns of differing sizes. Redundant probe tips can also carry different chemicals simultaneously for multi-ink lithography.
• Faster: This technology enables patterning and imaging sequentially in a single run, eliminating the need to change probes and recalibrate.
• Eliminates cross-contamination: By patterning and imaging with different probes within the same array, this technology eliminates the problem of cross-contamination.
• Accurate: Because the tip-to-tip distance in the array is known, accurate registration between patterns is easily achieved.
• Precision control: An integrated thermal actuator allows control to raise or lower individual probes.

2. Probe Fabrication Method and Microcontact Printing Technique (TF02082)

Scanning probe microscopes perform measurements using a probe that has a flexible cantilever beam with a sharp tip attached at the distal end. The fabrication methods for these probes have a number of major drawbacks, including time- sensitive and inefficient processes and difficulty in producing uniform sharpness. Because the cantilevers are made of inorganic thin films, high temperatures and multi-step processes are required to produce them. This new method for probe fabrication and microcontact printing eliminates these problems, while producing either a single probe or an array of probes. It uses an efficient process, lowcost materials, and produces a uniform probe profile. This technology also includes a method for microcontact printing using the fabricated probes described above with integrated elastomeric tips and a commercial scanning probe microscope. This method eliminates the costly and timeconsuming need for a photolithography mask by attaching "inks" to the probe tip and creating patterns with connecting dots. This new technique combines the sub-micrometer accuracy and features of the SPM with the chemical versatility and performance advantages of microcontact printing.

Benefits

• Lower cost: By utilizing a substrate and sacrificial layer, probes can be fabricated at lower cost than with current fabrication methods. Additionally, the direct microcontact printing technique lowers costs by eliminating the need for a photolithographic mask.
• Improved efficiency: Reusing substrate templates to fabricate additional probes saves time as well as maintains consistent size and sharpness.
• Improved performance: Because the microcontact printing technique combines the features of the SPM with the chemical versatility and performance advantages of microcontact printing, sub-micrometer accuracy is enabled.

3. Machining Nanotube-sized Tips from Multiwalled Nanotubes (TF04162)

This technology uses an electron beam machining process to sharpen boron nitride nanotubes into fine-tipped probes for use in atomic force microscopes for molecular and nanostructure imaging and surface manipulation. The nanotube probes are of high strength, high Young's modulus of elasticity, and provide high aspect ratios.

Benefits

• High strength: Because they are formed from multi-walled nanotubes, the resulting tips are very strong.
• High aspect ratio: The tip's fine point and nanometer-scale size enable high aspect ratios for viewing at the atomic level, providing a significant improvement.

4. Atomic force Microscopy (AFM) Fluid Dispensing System for Probe Arrays (TF02040)

To meet the need for an arrayed fluid dispensing system for multiple probes, this technology provides fabrication methods for multiple micro-channels connected to an array of fluid wells. This technology allows side-by-side probes to receive individual inks to create high-density arrays, particularly beneficial for studying biochemical substances such as DNA or proteins.

Benefits

• Multiple Inks: Current technologies for inking nanolithography probes do not allow the placement of unique inks on each probe tip. Individual tip inking allows for application in high-density DNA and protein arrays. 

5. Electrostatic Actuators for Controlling Vertical Movement of Probes(TF03110)

Problems with existing electrostatic actuators include complex fabrication methods, low deflection and force generation, large footprints requiring much wafer space and widely spaced probe tips. This design and fabrication method for electrostatic actuators uses the substrate surface as an electrode, simplifying fabrication. It also results in greater deflection and force and a much smaller footprint, enabling ultrahigh density probe arrays with improved performance.

Benefits

• Simplified fabrication: Because this system includes only one electrode (in the probe), fabrication is greatly simplified.
• Smaller footprint: The electrostatic force and probe stiffness are linear functions of the probe width, making the actuation method highly scalable to very small sizes, potentially enabling ultra-high density probe arrays.
• Better performance: High voltage differences can be applied across the electrodes, resulting in high forces and large deflections.

This technology provides a technique for fabricating metallic structures with dimensions considerably smaller than 10 nm and the use of a focused electron beam to locally manipulate nanowires with a resolution of about 3 nm. This is the first technology to use an electron beam and achieve such a high resolution of matter manipulation.

Metallic devices hold promise for miniaturization because the electronic wavelength is much smaller in metals than in semiconductors. This technology allows users to fabricate metallic structures with dimensions around 4 nm. The method is based on the application of single linear molecules. This type of metallic decoration results in a very thin metallic wire. Researchers have discovered that in order to produce continuous homogenous wires without breaks, one has to use amorphous metals and alloys which exhibit a high adhesion to the molecule. This technology also allows the use of a focused electron beam to locally modify the shape and the morphology of nanowires with a resolution of about 3 nm. A high energy focused electron beam is used for this purpose. The beam is available in a standard transmission electron microscope. Additionally, this technology can produce a nanograin small enough that its charging energy is less than room temperature thermal fluctuation energy. Therefore, these grains can act as room temperature, single-electron tunneling transistors. Also, pronounced quantum-size effects can occur at low temperatures.

This technology could potentially lead to single-electron devices smaller than those attainable through conventional semiconductor technology or even to highly integrated quantum computers.

Applications:

• Miniaturization
• Quantum computers
• Nanowire crystallization, etching and melting
• Superconducting devices
• Single-electron devices

Benefits:

Size - The ability to create metallic structures with such small dimensions can be used to improve numerous applications.

This technology is a rapid, simple and sensitive method for detecting the binding or unbinding of biomolecules using a silicon wafer. It is a novel method for detecting when two biomolecules unbind. The target biomolecule is placed on the silicon wafer, and then the partner biomolecules is fluorescently labeled and allowed to bind to target protein. At this point, the fluorescent label is quenched as it is brought into proximity of the silicon substrate. The technology works best for detecting disassociation or unbinding, such as screening for drugs that interfere with protein-protein binding.

Compared to quenching by the common technique of fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), the technology yields much larger quenching (signal/background ratio); provides robust signals even on the largest biomolecules complexes; and simplifies labeling since only one protein must be labeled (compared with two labels needed for FRET). Also, position or rigidity of the labeling site is relatively unimportant compared with polarized fluorescence assays. Because silicon is used, photolithographic techniques can potentially be used to miniaturize and integrate excitation, detection, and sample handling. Finally, the technology is fluorescence-based so it is highly sensitive and safe without the need for radioactivity.

Applications

This technology would be highly useful in therapeutic drug screening, and should be of interest to major pharmaceutical companies. High-throughput screening for drug discovery Works best for measuring disassociation/unbinding

Benefits

• Long-quenching range: more efficient at energy transfer than the standard fluoresce resonance energy transfer (FRET), thus larger complexes still receive energy transfer
• Simplified Labeling: acceptor protein does not have to be labeled and is less critical where dye is attached to donor
• Scalable: Possible to miniaturize technology Safe: Technology does not use radioactivity